While the Winter Olympic Games may be wrapping up in a few days, two Lake Health employees are preparing to travel to Sochi as part of the medical staff for the U.S. Paralympic team.

Dr. Brian Juriga and athletic trainer Kat Shuster will leaving on Feb. 28 to help care for the medical needs of the U.S. alpine athletes, who include skiers and snowboarders.

Back in 2009, Juriga’s roommate in medical school was moving on from his position with the U.S. Olympic Committee and suggested Juriga as an option to replace him. With his strong skiing background, Juriga said he jumped at the opportunity.

“I’d get a chance to take care of the best in the world and be a part of the United States team of Olympic athletes,” said Juriga, co-medical director of sports medicine at Lake Health. “For being in sports medicine, it’s the pinnacle to work with the best athletes in the world that you can.”

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Shuster joined the team in December after an athletic trainer position opened up. For the Sochi games, Shuster will be able to put her fluency in Russian to good use. She was born in Estonia, where Russian is one of the main languages, and moved with her family to the U.S. when she was 4 years old.

“I was honored,” Shuster said of being chosen for the games. “It was awesome that they liked me enough to take me.”

All told, nearly 700 athletes from 45 countries will compete in 72 different medal events. Athletes have different classifications depending on their conditions, including missing limbs and visual impairment.

Juriga and Shuster will be joined by another physician and a physical therapist in handling the medical needs of the alpine athletes, competing in downhill, slalom, giant slalom, super-G, super combined and snowboard cross, the last of which is new for the 2014 games.

The 11th Paralympic Winter Games will use the same facilities as the Olympic Games, including skiers racing down the same courses used by the likes of 2014 U.S. Olympic medalists Bode Miller, Ted Ligety and Julia Mancuso.

“I’m hoping that when people see it and realize what these athletes are doing, it’s not like they’re at a lower level than regular athletes,” said Juriga. “It’s the same level, just these people have been adapting their whole life or since their injury has happened.”

The Paralympics have been growing in popularity, as evidenced by the increased hours that the games will be broadcast on NBC and NBCSN, kicking off with a live broadcast of the Opening Ceremony at 11 a.m. on March 7 on NBCSN. View the full TV schedule. All events will also be streamed live online at www.teamusa.org.

“I hope the television coverage does background stories on them because it’s amazing how many tear-jerking stories there are,” said Juriga, mentioning military veterans injured in combat, people injured during athletics, and some born with different conditions. “It’s just amazing stories.”

Their travel expenses to Sochi are paid for, but the pair said they are not making any money by participating. Juriga added that while enjoyable, the trip will be anything but a vacation.

“We’ll start at 5:30 in the morning and you don’t finish up until 11:30 or midnight, depending on what’s scheduled, when you get off the mountain, how long it takes with treatments,” he said. “And for us that’ll be straight, for three or four weeks.”

Shuster said she is excited for the challenge of treating the world’s top athletes, especially with the restrictions placed on many medications during the games and the need to get athletes prepared for competing in events in consecutive days.

“It’ll be an amazing experience,” she said.

Juriga added that he gets a great sense of accomplishment when athletes say they could not have succeeded without their treatment.

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